An Open Letter to Baldwin REALTORS® from Al Beck, POA President of Rock Creek
FAIRHOPE, Ala. – The Rock Creek Golf Course in Fairhope has officially sold to new owners. GolfCoPartners, Inc. of North Carolina purchased the course and clubhouse from Honours/Troon on August 16th, 2020. Brothers and business partners, Scott and Patrick Schneider, are excited to invest in and serve the Eastern Shore Community by providing a great place for individuals, groups and families to socialize. Their philosophy with Rock Creek is simple and transparent – to operate as a public golf course, restaurant, and social gathering center that serves the local community and surrounding Eastern Shore / Mobile Bay area. GolfCoPartners plans to improve the golf, dining, and social experience at Rock Creek. Already, within 2 days of this purchase, Rock Creek now has a new fleet of golf carts.
To all Associates: This transaction means that Rock Creek Golf is here to stay. Now, as you select and show residential properties to your customers, you can be confident in knowing that Rock Creek will remain one of the premier, high-value and desirable family communities in Baldwin County.
Facts:
The 18-hole Rock Creek Golf Course is open to the Public, seven days a week.
The Rock Creek Clubhouse restaurant is also open to the public. A new menu will be introduced on Monday, August 24th. During this COVID crisis, the restaurant hours are from 10am-3pm, seven days a week.
The Rock Creek Community Pool is not owned by the Golf Course. The pool was purchased/built by the Rock Creek POA in 2017 and available only to Rock Creek (Phases 1-4) residents and guests.
The Rock Creek community has three neighborhoods/POAs surrounding the golf course: Rock Creek (Phases 1-4, 442 lots), Eastern Rock Creek (Phases 5-6, 177 lots), and Sandy Ford (126 lots) – many houses, of all sizes and price ranges, are currently on the market.
Lots are still available for new builds in all three neighborhoods.
Here is the Rock Creek golf course website, if you want more information or have questions: https://www.rockcreekgolf.com/index.php
Here is the GolfCoPartners website: https://golfcopartners.com/
A Letter from the New Owners to the Community Members at Rock Creek (sent August 16th)
Today, we are happy and excited to assume ownership of Rock Creek Golf Club. We know it has been at least a year of uncertainty for the community as it relates to what might happen with the golf club. We are excited to be the new owners and look forward to serving the community through providing a great place for folks to play golf and enjoy social time together…even in these challenging times. We are especially excited for the community as we believe through working closely with the community, we can positively impact property values and community spirit.
To quickly introduce ourselves –
Scott Schneider – COO at Golfcopartners. Scott is a lifelong golf professional and operator of courses and clubs including municipals, semi-privates, resort, and high end private throughout the US. Scott is the former CEO of Ken Venturi Golf Academies where he delivered a high-end destination golf school at locations in the US and Caribbean. In 2016 he became a co-founder of Golfcopartners and focused on identification of acquisitions of golf clubs. Recently Scott served as the interim GM at our other club in Fernandina Beach, Florida, The Golf Club at North Hampton. Over the coming months, he will be spending his time at Rock Creek bringing our culture and approach to this club. This will include managing and enabling the current and new staff with what they will need to deliver a great experience for everyone and provide Rock Creek as a destination to play golf and gather socially.
Patrick Schneider – CEO/CFOat Golfcopartners. After retiring from a 35-year career as a partner with some of the world’s largest management consulting companies, Patrick co-founded Golfcopartners with Scott. Golfcopartners is a golf company focused on the acquisition and turnaround of golf clubs. Additionally, Golfcopartners offers a virtual business process outsourcing solution for other clubs in the industry. Patrick will focus mainly on the business and financial operations at Rock Creek making sure there is sound financial structure and discipline around the operations of the club and how capital will be allocated to projects to enhance the club.
Behind us are a cache of hand selected individual investors and Board members who support our vision and provide additional expertise to our operations as needed.
Our philosophy with Rock Creek is simple and transparent. Our intent is to operate as a golf course and social gathering center that serves the local community and surrounding area. The degree to which the local market financially supports the business will drive our ability to provide more value and preserve/enhance property values in the community. Ultimately, our mutual success depends upon each other. We have a proven model that works.
We recently met with representatives of the leadership of the 3 POAs that surround Rock Creek. There were many questions about what was going to happen and what the future of the club might be. The following summary illustrates our near-term focus:
Golf Course. Aligned with our philosophy of providing the right product at the right price point for the market, It will take some time to fully evaluate the course and prioritize projects to introduce areas of improvement. Scott will be working closely with the maintenance team through this process to develop a list of prioritized projects
General Manager. Steve Harris has graciously accepted the challenge of carrying forward as General Manager of the club. He brings a deep history of experience in the food and beverage industry and over the recent past has been building his understanding of the golf business. Most importantly, he brings an ‘ownership mentality’ which works well with the culture we like to instill in our teams. ·
Memberships. For the remainder of 2020, we will continue forward with the existing program that is in place. We will be evaluating the membership structure, offering, and pricing over the remainder of the year and introduce changes for 2021. We will be introducing new point of sale technology from day one which will handle the billings and collections of member accounts as well as provide new means to make tee times, research your account, communications, etc. ·
Carts. We intend on replacing the existing cart fleet shortly after closing. There will be a temporary fleet for the first few weeks while we wait on the arrival of new carts in September. ·
Maintenance Equipment. We will be working with the superintendent and our vendor partners to evaluate and prioritize replacement of antiquated maintenance equipment needed for the course. We know the current fleet is old and needs modernization. As critical pieces are identified for retirement, they will be selectively replaced. The desire and outcome is to implement improvements on the course. ·
Clubhouse. We know the clubhouse is tired. What we have not determined is which strategic direction to take given the current impact of the pandemic crisis. We have been working with a strategic partner to help us understand what other clubs in the US are doing, to evaluate the clubhouse/grounds, and determine next steps. We will be working on this over the next few months to inform decisions on how we will move forward. We would not expect any substantive change to the club house this year.
Staffing. All current employees will be offered positions. Those who accept to continue will be evaluated for the next 3 months to determine if there is a good fit moving forward for us, the membership, the community, and other customers.
Communications. We will prepare and distribute monthly newsletters and other weekly/daily communications via email to our members to inform them about activities and events at the club. We anticipate providing the same or similar content to the POA organizations to distribute within their respective community.
Programming. Scott and his team will begin to introduce programming for members as it relates to the golf offering. It may take some time to get things rolling, but be assured that new programming will be introduced to generate interest and fun for those to enjoy the club
Feel free to connect with either of us once we get on site. We probably have as many questions for you as you do for us.
Cheers!
Scott and Patrick Schneider
Golfcopartners, LLC
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